Indoors, a loud machine is mostly a problem for the people who bought it. In the yard it belongs to the street. A leaf blower, a mower or a chainsaw is heard by the person holding it, by the family next door with the windows open, and by whoever is still asleep across the fence at the hour you start. So every yard tool has two audiences, and our outdoor guides keep the figures for each audience apart.
This page ties those guides together: what the published figures mean, where a battery tool beats gas and where it barely does, which jobs the neighbors hear most, and how to plan the loud ones. We write about noise only. For the hours your town allows any of this, check your local rules.
Two numbers for every tool
Most declared yard tool figures come from Europe. The European Commission describes the Outdoor Noise Directive, 2000/14/EC, as regulating the noise emissions into the environment by outdoor equipment, mainly machinery used on construction sites or in parks and gardens. Under it, a maker prints a guaranteed sound power level, LWA: a ceiling for the whole machine's acoustic output, set above the measured value, that the maker commits no unit will exceed.
Beside it, most manuals print a second quantity, LpA, the sound pressure at the operator's ear, measured under a named test. STIHL declares its FSA 57 trimmer under EN 50636-2-91, its battery hedge trimmers under EN 62841-4-2, its battery chainsaws under EN 62841-4-1, and its pole saws and its gas trimmers, hedge trimmers and chainsaws under ISO 22868. A K value beside the figure gives the uncertainty, usually 2 or 3 dB(A).
The ear figure is what you hear. The sound power is what the tool sends into the neighborhood. They are different quantities, the sound power is always the bigger number, and our guides never rank one against the other. STIHL's FSA 57 trimmer declares 74 dB(A) at the ear under EN 50636-2-91 and a guaranteed 91 dB(A) under 2000/14/EC. That is not a contradiction; it is two measurements of one trimmer. Our explainer on sound power vs sound pressure covers the mechanics.
Three wrinkles run through the yard guides:
- The 50 foot figure. Leaf blower makers print a bystander figure at 50 feet under ANSI B175.2, roughly what a neighbor hears. Husqvarna's 125B manual shows how far apart the kinds are for one blower: 93 dB(A) at the operator's ear against 71 dB(A) for a bystander under ANSI B175.2.
- Averages that include idling. STIHL's KombiSystem attachments and its gas pole pruners are declared as Lpeq, an average that includes idling and rated maximum speed. Idle time pulls the average down, so those figures sit in groups of their own.
- Bare numbers. Many robot mower and pressure washer makers print a figure without saying which quantity it is. ECOVACS is the robot mower brand that does say: it lists its GOAT O1000 at 57 dB(A) of sound power and 49 dB(A) of sound pressure. A rival's bare 55 could describe either.
Battery against gas, in the makers' own paperwork
The cleanest comparisons come from one maker declaring both kinds of tool under one test. On most tools the gap is large:
- String trimmers. STIHL's gas FS 56 declares 93 dB(A) at the operator's ear and 105 dB(A) of sound power under ISO 22868. The battery trimmers in our guide run 72.6 to 86 at the ear.
- Hedge trimmers. STIHL's gas HS 45 declares 97 dB(A) at the ear under ISO 22868, against 76 dB(A) under EN 62841-4-2 for its battery HSA 100.
- Chainsaws. STIHL's gas MS 250 declares 99 dB(A) at the ear under ISO 22868 and a guaranteed 114 dB(A). Its battery MSA 60 C-B declares 83 dB(A) under EN 62841-4-1 and a guaranteed 97.
- Cultivators. STIHL's BF-KM attachment declares 74 dB(A) at the ear on the battery KMA 135 R and 99 on the gas KM 131 R, in the same ISO 11201 table.
- Edgers. Husqvarna's US pages print 79 dB(A) at the ear for the battery 525iES and 94 for the gas 525ES, with no standard named.
- Leaf blowers. On the 50 ft ANSI B175.2 figure, the quietest battery blowers are rated at 54 to 60 dB(A), and the quietest gas models, ECHO's low-noise line, at 64 and 65 dB(A).
The exception is the lawn mower. STIHL declares its gas RM 655 V at 84 dB(A) at the operator and a guaranteed 98 dB(A). Its battery RMA 765 V declares the same 84 at the operator, under EN IEC 62841-4-3, and its battery RMA 756 V the same guaranteed 98. The declarations suggest the blade and deck, not the motor, make much of a mower's cutting noise. A battery mower still wins at idle, at startup and between passes, and it produces no exhaust.
And a battery tool is quieter, not quiet. STIHL's manuals recommend ear defenders even for the MSA 60, at 83 dB(A) at the ear. The US National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders lists lawnmowers and leaf blowers among the harmful noises people meet at home.
The tools a neighbor hears most
Leaf blowers. Our guide to the quietest leaf blowers ranks only on the 50 ft bystander figure, because it is the one closest to what the street hears and the basis some cities write into their blower rules. The Milwaukee 3017-20 leads at 54 dB(A) at 50 ft under ANSI B175.2. The guide keeps bare "dB" figures and operator's ear figures out of the ranking, and reads the manuals for running a blower more quietly.
Walk-behind mowers. Our guide to the quietest lawn mowers finds that only Husqvarna prints a mower figure on a US page, and gathers the rest from European manuals. EGO's LM2135SP maps to the EU LM2130E-SP, which declares 80.3 dB(A) at the operator's ear with a K of 3 and a guaranteed 93 dB(A) under 2000/14/EC. It is also where the gas mower comparison above comes from.
Robot mowers. A robot mower works while you do not, often at dawn or dusk, which is when a neighbor is most likely to hear it. Our guide to the quietest robot lawn mowers explains why its published figures, 55 dB to 65, cannot be sorted straight down the list, and covers wire, antenna and camera navigation and the two slope figures makers print.
Trimming and edging. These are the tools held closest to the head. Our guide to the quietest string trimmers sets out who declares under which standard and which US brands print nothing, including a whole product line sold on a percentage with no decibel behind it. Our guide to the quietest hedge trimmers holds the clearest ranking in outdoor power, and a surprise: STIHL's small HSA 30 and HSA 40 declare 82 dB(A) at the ear under EN 62841-4-2, louder than the full size HSA 60 at 77. Our guide to the quietest lawn edgers covers standalone edgers and edger attachments, where the power head changes the figure; Makita's XUX02 with the EE400MP attachment declares 73.8 dB(A) at the ear under ISO11789, from the European manual for its twin, the DUX18.
Cutting wood. Our guide to the quietest chainsaws covers the figures STIHL declares in its international manuals and leaves out of its North American ones, and Husqvarna's Power Axe saws, including the 225i Power Axe, the quietest declared saw it found on Amazon. Our guide to the quietest pole saws ranks only within each test method, because a pole saw keeps the battery, the trigger and your ears at the bottom of the shaft while the chain works overhead; STIHL's HTA 86 declares 77 dB(A) at the ear under ISO 22868.
Working the soil. Our guide to the quietest tillers and cultivators is built on the STIHL table that isolates the engine: one attachment, one method, gas and battery side by side. It also covers Honda's walk-behind tillers, declared in European manuals, and a figure printed with no weighting at all.
Washing. Our guide to the quietest pressure washers found that only two brands publish anything, and that they publish different things: Greenworks lists 68 dB with no basis stated, and Sun Joe a sound power of 96 dB(A). The guide will not rank one against the other, and no US maker publishes a figure for a gas homeowner model.
The machines that run for hours
Some outdoor machines are not loud for twenty minutes on a Saturday but steady for hours, which makes them a different kind of neighbor problem.
Generators. Our guide to the quietest generators for camping and RVs shows why the figures on the boxes rarely compare: one maker quotes a load, another a distance, a third neither. Honda lists its EU2200i at 48 dB(A) at quarter load and 57 at rated load, with no distance stated. It also carries the safety advice that outranks noise: the CPSC says to run a generator outside only, at least 20 feet away from homes, with the exhaust facing away.
Power stations. Our guide to the quietest portable power stations explains that a battery unit is silent until its fans spin up for fast charging or a heavy load. DJI lists the Power 1000 at as low as 23 dB, measured 100 cm away while recharging in its 600W Standard Recharging Mode.
Pool heat pumps. A pool heat pump sits on a pad for months, often nearer a bedroom window or a neighbor's patio than anyone planned. Our guide to the quietest pool heat pumps groups the figures by the distance each maker measures at and never ranks across groups. Madimack's InverELITE V2 84,000 prints "30.8 ~ 44.5" dB(A) at 10 ft, marked as sound pressure in its US manual. Hayward, Pentair and Jandy print no figure.
Planning the loud jobs
The guides are about buying, but the makers' manuals also say a good deal about running a tool considerately.
- Check your local rules first. The EPA notes that state and local governments have taken on the responsibility of responding to many noise pollution matters, so which hours count is a local question.
- Use the lowest speed that does the job. ECHO's blower manual says never to use a higher speed than a task needs, because the higher the engine speed, the louder the blower. Husqvarna says the same. Most of the battery blowers in that guide have a variable speed trigger for exactly this.
- Run one machine at a time. EGO and ECHO both advise limiting the number of pieces of power equipment used at once.
- Mind the cutting head and the power head. STIHL's FSA 86 R declares 77 dB(A) at the ear with its AutoCut head and 80 with the PolyCut. An attachment edger or cultivator declares differently on each power head, so check the row for the one you own.
- Schedule the robot. ECOVACS stops its GOAT mowers at night by default. Whatever mower you own, set its schedule with the neighbors' mornings in mind.
- Keep heavy loads off the generator. The makers say economy mode reduces noise at light loads, and a heavy load brings the engine back up to speed.
- Charge the power station slowly overnight. DJI's manual says its Standard Recharge Mode has lower recharge power and lower noise and suits charging at night.
- Place the pool heat pump with care. Aquastrong's manual tells owners to position the unit to minimize noise disturbance to neighbors, and Madimack says its Silence mode runs "3dB(A) lower than Boost mode".
How to read a yard tool figure
- Which quantity? At the ear, sound power (measured or guaranteed), a bystander figure at 50 feet, or a bare number with no basis. Compare only like with like.
- Which test and setting? A named standard, a K value, a cutting head, a power head, a load. A figure that names none of these cannot be ranked against one that does.
- Where was it printed? Many of the best figures sit in European manuals for the same tool under a different model number. Our guides state each match and flag the weak ones.
- How big is the gap? The National Park Service says an increase of 10 dB causes a doubling of perceived loudness. The gaps between gas and battery above are large. A decibel or two between brands is within the uncertainty most makers print.
For where these figures sit beside everyday sounds, see our decibel chart. If you live in a flat with a shared wall rather than a fence, our page on keeping an apartment quiet covers the machines your neighbors hear through the floor.
We did not measure any of these products. Every figure in our guides is the maker's own, quoted with the setting it describes.